Discovery: Mission New York

Mage said:

Meyer's comment on lowering expectations is something fans of many shows/movies/books/comics should do. They have this nearly unachievable version of what they love to see in future versions of their fandoms, and when that doesn't happen, they get disapointed and/or angry.

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This is very true. I find this attitude very often on the internet.

About a year ago, in the midst of the internet deciding that Idris Alba should be the next James Bond, no ifs, ands, or buts (never mind that Daniel still hasn't even officially given up the role yet), Bond author Anthony Horowitz gave an interview where after he praised the black voice actor who did the audiobook for Trigger Mortis, he gave the opinion that Idris Alba was too "street" for Bond, and suggested other actors of color that he thought could be good. Most people fixated on the "he thinks Alba shouldn't be Bond!" part without looking at the context of his comments, and labeled Horowitz a racist.

RAMA said:

There is an excellent summary here:
https://twitter.com/TrekMovie

One of Meyer's full quotes is here:

The video itself didn’t reveal anything, the footage was from the old shows intercut with the video of the Discovery revealed in July. The only thing that was actually new was a single shot of some alien latex that looked lizard-based. We’ve been teased this way before.

At the panel in person were Nicholas Meyer and Kirsten Beyer, who both sit in the writers’ room for the new series. They also couldn’t give any specifics about the show, but both agreed that their jobs were to service Bryan Fuller’s vision for the show. Although Meyer did have one piece of advice for a fan looking for assurance that the show would be everything they hoped it would be: “Lower your expectations.” He continued, a bit later, “It is a symbiotic relationship and all I’m suggesting is that if you go with open minds and open hearts, you may be rewarded. Whereas if you go with a set of impossible to realize expectations, which even you cannot specifically define, then we’re bound to fail. And so I’m saying: Get loose.”

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This is an absolutely brilliant quote. No matter what you do for a living, someone is your customer, and when you develop a product over months and years it's easy to lock into what you think your customers want, only to find that what they wanted has changed, or isn't really what they wanted despite what they told you. As much as my opinion was to go farther our in the timeline (25th century for example), I don't produce or write TV shows, nor do I have fantastic movies on my resume, so I'm willing to trust their judgment. I believe when they say it's a symbiotic relationship - if fans truly hate it, they will make changes......just as everyone does to satisfy their customers.

Meyer's quote is great and really could be applied to all things fans look forward to seeing and speculate about. Not just Star Trek.

He made a comment in one of the audio commentaries for his films that has stuck with me for years. Basically using the example that any film that takes place in 1776 is influenced by when it was made. Whether in 1976, 2016 etc. Every effort to be historically accurate is going to be affected by changing factors. Whether it's filmmaking styles or technology. Or individuals interpretations of events. Maybe even newly discovered historical information.

That is recreating real events and time periods. No reason to think revisiting a fictional future would also not be effected by the passage of time.

It must be hard trying to bow toward Mecca in deep space. They'd have to be aware of earth's heading at any given point.

dinzy said:

The bingable thing is BS. Most fans will want to watch the show as it "airs" but for the cheap ones who are willing to wait a few months, pay for one month and sit through 144 minutes or commercials there should be an option. There needs to be something for late comers too. This doesn't impact me, but the business model bothers me so much that it actually affects me. I just can't stand companies that restrict things in order to manipulate people. Adding in all this nonsense to try to force the small fraction of fans that would use the wait and binge loophole is silly and, more importantly it is harmful to those fans who do purchase it. For example, the show will run over February vacation, a time that many families go on vacation and will likely let their TV viewership lapse. Depending on the day it releases they could easily fall behind by 3 episodes during the busy periods before and after vacation. So people like this, or those who have life issues come up that take them away from TV should be punished because some people will try to maximize their dollars and binge watch a show? No they should not.

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It doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with "cheapness". I've grown fed up with the artificial make-you-wait-a-week-between-episodes thing that old-fashioned TV producers continue to want to do. My life is too busy these days and when there's a significant gap between episodes, I lose the sense of place and connection with the series that I'm watching. That was alright in the days of non-serialized shows, but I don't like it anymore.

With modern series that are still aired in that archaic way (Game of Thrones, The Americans, etc), now I'll wait until the whole series has aired and then start watching. An episode a night turns a season of a show into a ~two-week experience, with small enough spaces between episodes that I remain connected to the story in a way that I never am with seasons broken up with week-long gaps.

If CBS All Access means to try to force viewers to watch on Nicholas Meyer's outdated 'structured' schedule, I'll probably just wait and watch it in a different way.

phoenix96 said:

My life is too busy these days and when there's a significant gap between episodes, I lose the sense of place and connection with the series that I'm watching. That was alright in the days of non-serialized shows, but I don't like it anymore.

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Are you serious? I can get being busy with your life, but expecting those folks behind doing the show making all episodes available immediately for your "benefit"?

I really miss those long periods between episodes that left us wondering what's next...? How are they gonna resolve this and/or that...??

Of course, I've long forgotten when the long gaps between which episodes from one of the 24th century shows were, but I think it helped me enjoy and appreciate it more.

phoenix96 said:

It doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with "cheapness". I've grown fed up with the artificial make-you-wait-a-week-between-episodes thing that old-fashioned TV producers continue to want to do. My life is too busy these days and when there's a significant gap between episodes, I lose the sense of place and connection with the series that I'm watching. That was alright in the days of non-serialized shows, but I don't like it anymore.

With modern series that are still aired in that archaic way (Game of Thrones, The Americans, etc), now I'll wait until the whole series has aired and then start watching. An episode a night turns a season of a show into a ~two-week experience, with small enough spaces between episodes that I remain connected to the story in a way that I never am with seasons broken up with week-long gaps.

If CBS All Access means to try to force viewers to watch on Nicholas Meyer's outdated 'structured' schedule, I'll probably just wait and watch it in a different way.

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My thoughts exactly. That's why I have stopped watching TV altogether. I'll watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it.

Finn said:

Are you serious? I can get being busy with your life, but expecting those folks behind doing the show making all episodes available immediately for your "benefit"?

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When the time between episodes is required for actually filming or producing the episode, the gap makes sense and I don't have a problem with it. I don't know what Discovery's production schedule is going to be, but obviously it's possible to release a series all at once (see House of Cards, Stranger Things, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc).

That's not exactly what I'm talking about, though. I'm talking about the supposed inability to watch all the episodes in short succession, even after they've all aired, through CBS All Access. That makes it a decidedly inferior experience to using Netflix, HBO, Amazon Instant, or pretty much any of the other paid streaming services.

At that point, if CBS is artificially going to restrict the way I can watch the show, why would I bother to subscribe to their service at all?

dinzy said:

Please No! Trek tended to avoid modern religion. Aliens had it but Earth-based religion was not in it as far as I can recall. I took it to imply that it was largely a post-religion society which is what we should expect some 250 years from now. Including someone with middle eastern roots is fine, but including a practicing muslim, that is insane.

I googled it and apparently Gene was an atheist and his vision clearly had a future with no human religion. None of the Abrahamic religions could even cope with the idea of sentient species on different planets. They can't even cope with different Abrahamic religions.

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whilst i do agree with singling out a religious group for overt representation in this way would be daft for Trek (babylon 5 handled it nicely with its queue of every religious leader they could think, Trek mostly runs on a dont ask dont tell, or bury it somewhere vague in a character...Chakotay excepted. hokoochimoya) and incredibly unrepresentative, I feel I should point out that your assertion anpbout abhramic religions is categorically untrue, not least as there are Christian produced and influenced scifi novels out there (one i remember from my youth was somewhat Trek like, but handled the parallel development idea of Trek far better than Bread and Circuses, and focused more on a retelling of the garden of eden...if eden was a technologically advanced and populated alien world. And I won't even mention CS Lewis or the Narnia books, since they were established as parallel world books before they were fashionable..) but the more relaxed church will happily point out the bit in the bible where some beings that appear strongly to be aliens actually appear. having discussed this when I was a younger church going chap, I can vouch for the Church of England being perfectly fine with alien beings...this was before they even had women vicars mind you. Still, what else would you expect from the same organisation that quite happily included scientists (especially paleontologists) in its clergy, and helped Darwin with his work on the Origin of the Species right?

In terms of Discovery, I think it would be crazy as heck. Theres a radical difference between a nationality tied to a specific ideology, and an ideology itself. Chekov may have been Russian, but he was not a communist that we saw (well, no more than everyone else) and he mentioned Tsars more than anything 20th Century. It would just be clumsy tokenism, and to an international audience would look like it too. An arab character? no problem, though they would not be the first. Did I mention how perfectly normal Julian Bashirs family seemed?
its time for Trek to drop Hollywood stereotypes altogether tbh, its not got a good track record.

JonnyQuest037 said:

This is very true. I find this attitude very often on the internet.

About a year ago, in the midst of the internet deciding that Idris Alba should be the next James Bond, no ifs, ands, or buts (never mind that Daniel still hasn't even officially given up the role yet), Bond author Anthony Horowitz gave an interview where after he praised the black voice actor who did the audiobook for Trigger Mortis, he gave the opinion that Idris Alba was too "street" for Bond, and suggested other actors of color that he thought could be good. Most people fixated on the "he thinks Alba shouldn't be Bond!" part without looking at the context of his comments, and labeled Horowitz a racist.

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Adrian Lester.
mind you, would be better just to have a new character tbh.

Maybe they'll be like the Qunari in Dragon Age. Definitely inspired by but not actually.

phoenix96 said:

When the time between episodes is required for actually filming or producing the episode, the gap makes sense and I don't have a problem with it. I don't know what Discovery's production schedule is going to be, but obviously it's possible to release a series all at once (see House of Cards, Stranger Things, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc).

That's not exactly what I'm talking about, though. I'm talking about the supposed inability to watch all the episodes in short succession, even after they've all aired, through CBS All Access. That makes it a decidedly inferior experience to using Netflix, HBO, Amazon Instant, or pretty much any of the other paid streaming services.

At that point, if CBS is artificially going to restrict the way I can watch the show, why would I bother to subscribe to their service at all?

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We did that with TNG, DS9, Voyager and ENT. SO WHAT???

Finn said:

We did that with TNG, DS9, Voyager and ENT. SO WHAT???

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I just can not believe that they wont have all 13 episodes available to watch on demand soon after launch. If not it just encourages piracy.

Ooookay

It's pretty safe to say that production will go on months past the premiere date. It's already September and they are still in pre-prod with zero casting and the show set to debut in January. In that way it's very much like the old shows, and I wouldn't expect the finale before next summer. This is were the monthly subscription model breaks down. Subscription should be content based. X amount for season 1. XX amount if you want all the other reruns, etc. XXX amount if you want Trek p.....errr never mind.

Filming/Shooting starts in September. First episode airs in January. so that is an indication of how long the first episode will take, and so you just slide that along for 13 weeks. Not sure how much of the initial work will be re-used establishing shots of the ship, and the opening sequence, and credits. Not to mention any set and filming tests are still needed once the cast are in place.

http://www.thetrekcollective.com/2016/09/loads-of-new-ships-announced-and-other.html


This will be followed next year by the USS Enterprise design created for the unmade film Planet of the Titans, created by Ken Adams and illustrated by Ralph McQuarrie. This design is of course the inspiration of the USS Discovery, so will be a timely release alongside the new TV series. There were two distinct study models created of the design, which have appear on-screen as background ships, and Eaglemoss plan to release both, one as a regular issue, and the other as one of these new subscriber exclusives releases (images via Memory Alpha).





During the Q and A at the end of the panel Ben also noted a few other ships. He is definitely doing to be doing the ringship Enterprise. He would also like to do another concept Enterprise, the Matt Jefferies phase II design. Captain Proton's rocket ship is being considered too (!!!!). But don't expect to see any TAS designs any time soon; maybe after 130 if the series gets another extension.


When asked about Discovery he wasn't able to say much, but seemed very enthusiastic about the series, and made a comment similar to something he tweeted recently, implying we will be seeing many ships in the series:
10 years before Kirk... ST Discovery is a Pike-era show and you have no idea how varied the fleet was in 2255.
Beyond ships Ben also noted he is looking at doing plaques for the USS Enterprise-A and USS Franklin. And also confirmed the previously teased book series will be going ahead; these books will collect and expand on the design articles from the magazines in the series, with the first due out later this year, looking at the designs of the many starships Enterprise.

dinzy said:

The bingable thing is BS.

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It is. Mostly because it's coming 100% from a couple of forum posters with a really poor understanding of what they read. "Not bingable" just means they won't be doing what Netflix does with their original series; putting all of the episodes online on the same day.

To think, let alone assume, otherwise is completely silly. "Hey guys, pay to watch our show, but you better be quick cause once they 'air', that's it for forever and ever! Haha, sucks to be you! Welcome to 1990, bitches!" An absurd assumption.

And no, Hulu doesn't do that with their original programming.

RAMA said:

https://twitter.com/TrekCore/status/772156438118535172

Kurtzman: 'It's time to modernize #StarTrek for television.' Fuller: #StarTrekDiscovery 'is about the best of what humanity has to offer.'

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RAMA said:

Big news: Discovery will not be bingeable:
Star Trek: Discovery will not be bingeable, but they're bundling them with a novel and comic book run? Brave leap into 1995! #StarTrekNY

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"We need to modernize Trek..." "Nope you can't watch them all at once..."

So WTF do they actually mean by modernize then? Because, to me, modernize it would mean to put it on Netflix without ads and release them all at once. But I guess modernize to them means to not present the show in the modern fashion. That doesn't bode well. Neither does a writer or producer saying to lower our expectations. Yikes.

tomalak301 said:

So we're going to pay money for a service which will not have all episodes on demand? That sucks even worse than paying to see ads.

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They're apparently trying really hard to get as many people to pirate their show as possible.

So they want people to pay to watch a show with ads, and if they fall behind they won't be able to access the older episodes of the show they're paying to be able to watch? That's a level of stupid I did not expect.

dinzy said:

Please No! Trek tended to avoid modern religion. Aliens had it but Earth-based religion was not in it as far as I can recall. I took it to imply that it was largely a post-religion society which is what we should expect some 250 years from now. Including someone with middle eastern roots is fine, but including a practicing muslim, that is insane.

I googled it and apparently Gene was an atheist and his vision clearly had a future with no human religion. None of the Abrahamic religions could even cope with the idea of sentient species on different planets. They can't even cope with different Abrahamic religions.

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Middle Eastern, yes. Muslim, no. The whole point is that humanity is advanced beyond such petty and archaic superstitions.